GM has placed HUMMER and Saab under “strategic review.” Which is a fancy way of saying if they could afford to kill them, they would. But thanks to 50 states’ worth of dealer-lovin’ franchise laws and a pile of cash that looks a lot like an asteroid impact crater, they can’t. So they’d like to sell them. But thanks to a global auto industry meltdown– worldwide production is well below 50 percent of capacity– they can’t. So… nothing. Well, your tax dollars hard at work. And soon, Sweden’s. Meanwhile, Automotive News [AN, sub] is confirming common sense, quoting sources familiar with people who know someone who may or may not be involved with the sale but since there isn’t going to be one do we really need to Deep Throat this thing oh what the Hell. To their credit, AN got the HUMMER-Saab-Cadillac channel’s spinmeister to reveal the corporation’s plans for their zombies, now that U.S. taxpayers have a direct stake in their fortunes. Just kidding. “Joanne Krell, a spokeswoman for GM’s Hummer-Saab-Cadillac sales channel, declined to discuss efforts to sell Saab. ‘We are not commenting on the details of the strategic review,’ she said. ‘As soon as we have some details to report, we will.'” As for Ford’s Volvo, everyone and their mother told The Blue Oval Boyz to sell the brand even before the crash of ’07. When Alan Mulally took the reins from Billy Ford, the ex-Boeing exec said no ‘friggin’ way. By the time he admitted to yes way, he couldn’t even get ten-foot poll marks on the brand [see: above]. It’s got to the point where Volvo’s grounded their press fleet. HUMMER, Saab, Volvo, Buick, Saturn, Pontiac, Mercury, Lincoln, GMC– can’t live with ’em, can’t live with ’em.
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I’d like Volvo to stick around.
” … spokeswoman for GM’s Hummer-Saab-Cadillac sales channel … ”
I guess GM didn’t notice what a complete disaster Ford’s PAG effort was. Nope, they just had to try it for themselves.
If Volvo does close up shop I may have to pick up a later model lightly used V70 at the expected give-away prices.
Regardless of what happens to the brand, I now want a ’67 Volvo.
The military should have never sold the rights of hummer to GM, Its Fords fault, Its GMs fault.
I agree w/ Pariah–that Amazon is a beauty.
AM General was the one who sold the Hummer brand rights to GM. Oddly enough, AM General was once the military vehicles division of American Motors, but was separated from American Motors when Renault became AMC’s controlling shareholder. US law at the time didn’t allow foreign control of military contractors. AM General continues to make military vehicles.
The company has a good historical overview here:
http://www.amgeneral.com/corporate/history.php
+2 on the Amazon/122 admiration. I have an 1800ES derived from that same platform and I still enjoy it. What does Volvo offer today which is as distinctive as the 122, 140 or 240 were in their day? Perhaps the V50 and V70 as they are two of the very few wagons available in the US.
It could do without the tuner bits though.
Judging by the sales numbers, no-one is going to miss Saab or Volvo. That’s what happens when you badge engineer; the marque “history” goes out the window and most people know it. The other example is Jaguar and the counter-example is Mini.
Hummer just needs to die or be spun off with Jeep (it will be avail soonish), or turned back in AM General or Willys (spelling?).
(Off topic, sorry)
Being fairly conservative in taste, I usually find tuner cars offensive. Mostly it seems to me that the owner hasn’t known when to stop. Ricers and “Pimp My Ride” are what I’m takin’ about.
Like the other posts, I don’t mind that Volvo though. Weird.
It’s sad, the near-death Volvo and Saab. 20 years ago, it was OK to keep a model in production with little in the way of cosmetic changes for over 10 years without much thought. The 240 lasted the better part of two decades, the 900, one and a half decades. You just can’t do this anymore, what with customers who demand a fresh body style every few years and technological gee-whizzbangedry that can drive them while they text people and update their twitter. Add the fact that Saab and Volvo’s old trump cards of FWD and über safety respectively are old hat, and it’s easy to see why their sales are permanently waning. Volvo could never build another 240 again, nobody outside of current 240 owners would buy it. Seriously. Saab has fared horribly by keeping the 9-5 in production for 11 years; an issue that has been discussed at length here before. There is absolutely nothing Volvo and Saab could do now to save themselves: not going upmarket, downmarket, Chinese, SUV or Hybrid.
And for the record, Pete, I will miss Volvo. Good thing though that there seems to be an endless supply of 240s around.
The problem with Saab and Volvo is that it’s hard to get people to buy them brand new.
Why would I go and spend 40K+ on the Turbo X when I KNOW that in a year I could find one on a dealer lot with 10,000 miles on it going for under 30K that the dealer is desperate to sell
Same thing with Volvo
Viceroy Fizzlebottom (*salutes*) makes an excellent point. I know a surprisingly large amount of people that have bought Saabs and Volvos, and every single one of them bought used despite being well within the means to buy a new one (especially the Saab owners). When I asked them about it, most of them said it was because a model less than three years old was much cheaper than a new one.
Campisi: “I know a surprisingly large amount of people that have bought Saabs and Volvos, and every single one of them bought used despite being well within the means to buy a new one (especially the Saab owners). ” – but somebody must have bought them new for them to be in the used market, right?
To Gforce,
Of course someone bought (and continues to buy) the new metal. I’m just saying that the people I’ve known that have bought Saabs and Volvos found the used cars to be a considerably better deal. I made no claim about whether or not anyone was buying the new metal.
I used to have a 240 Volvo, great Car when New, over the years I kept my dealer happy by all the service it needed, I know also that another friend in Cars says that the first few years with any Volvo model are good, but later they are expensive to fix! What I liked about my 240 was that the Floor was a double one, found that out when I was looking for a “Rust” problem, not many Cars back then had a double floor that I know of!
Good luck to them and I am sure they would be better off in Swedish hands once again.
Slightly OT – the guy who built that amazing 600hp Amazon works for Koenigsegg.
As for Volvo – having been ripped off by their dealers twice I have no sympathy.
Judging by the sales numbers, no-one is going to miss Saab or Volvo. That’s what happens when you badge engineer; the marque “history” goes out the window and most people know it. The other example is Jaguar and the counter-example is Mini.
Volvo and Saab were badge-engineered in entirely different ways, and Volvo’s was much more respectable: Ford took the best of them and folded it into their models, resulting in cars like the D-Platform Five Hundred, Taurus, Freestyle and Flex that are actually quite good, and have benefitted greatly from Volvo platform and engineering expertise. Meanwhile, Volvo got the necessary cash and R&D expertise to keep going.
Their failure is really one of marketing, and their state is similar to that which Acura will find itself in very soon, or Subaru if they’re not careful. There’s still a lot “Volvo” left; it’s a viable company, but they need to come up with a reason for people to buy their product. A price cut would be a big start, because Volvo just doesn’t compete with Mercedes or Audi; they compete with Saab (snort!), Subaru and perhaps Volkswagen.
Saab, though, became a reseller for rebadged Opels at best, and yet another cost amortization for the GMT360 at worst. GM gutted them stem to stern, leaving only that which was unprofitable to replace at the time, and taking nothing Saab offered to make the rest of GM better. Right now, Saab is just another head on the hydra. There’s nothing they sell that you couldn’t buy at another GM Factory Outlet.
Here is a novel “solution” for Volvo and Saab’s problems. (Tongue in cheek?)
Since folks are more inclined to buy Volvos and Saabs when they cost about 3/4 of the new price, why not actually streamline production down to two or so related vehicles, engineer simplicity into them (wow what a novel idea), build them with quality (Honda, anyone?), give them a specific high-tech, high-class, Scandanavian look (Bang & Olafson anyone?), make it a VIRTUE to indicate that the styling won’t be changing for the sake of change over one decade minimum and remind prospective buyers what this will do for parts prices (lower them – and wow – actually DO lower them) as well as insurance costs (due to lower priced parts) and resale value (increase them, potentially).
In other words, go back to the Saab 99 and Volvo 240 “modes of operation”. Like small niche players should.
Then actually price the cars at about 3/4 of what they now cost for a similar current Saab or Volvo. Actually, scratch that. Nix Saab – it’s a dead brand walking. Volvo has the potential to survive.
Interesting how Ford has the potential to survive, too. GM, not so much.
The discussion above does highlight the well known current sales problem. Yes someone had to get a new Saab/Volvo in order for all these people to buy them used later. HOW that happened in the first place was not buying, but leasing. Which has now gone away.
I have owned, in order, an ’86 Volvo 240, a ’00 V40, a ’99 V70, and now a ’05 V50 T5.
Each one was better than the last, with the exception of the V40 which was really a POS compared to the others.
I love the V50, even though it may be “badge-engineered,” and I really hope Volvo survives in some incarnation or another.
GM needs to just let its excess brands wither from lack of development (as if they aren’t doing that already). As the models age, sales will fall and dealers will get the hint and close up slowly but surely.
As for Ford, Mercury costs Ford nothing to maintain. The cars are all straight rebadges, so there’s no engineering work, and all Mercury dealers are paired with at least Lincoln, if not Ford as well, so there aren’t any extra Mercury dealers floating around. Lincoln could be saved with the right product. There is still lots of customer good will there. Same with Volvo.
Chrysler: Bye, bye.
All three are really elitist vehicles.
Hummer: Appeals to guys with big wallets that want to show it off. The few guys that actually try and take their Hummers off-road get stuck and either have a Jeep drive by them or pull them off of a rock that they high-centered on.
Saab: Why is it that older socialists always drive a Saab? Must be their dream of America being a socialist utopia like Europe?
Volvo: We’ve got the money and therefore we’re going to buy an overpriced station wagon (even if it is slightly ugly) to show off to our neighbors that our precious children are safer then yours!
Good riddance! ;)
Airhen:
Good riddance! ;)
If only…
Why is it that older socialists always drive a Saab? Must be their dream of America being a socialist utopia like Europe?
Hey, I resemble** that remark!
** Technically, I’m a younger socialist, but otherwise you’re pretty much bang-on.
S60: same body style from 2000-2010.
I’d like to see Volvo survive.
I’ve owned an ’85 240 wagon, ’91 740 Turbo wagon, ’96 850 sedan, ’02 S60 AWD sedan. In my opinion, Volvo lost its way with the S80 and S60 rounded designs.
The whole idea of a Volvo from an aesthetic point of view was that it was understated. Like they used to say, a Volvo “looks like the box it came in” and “blends into traffic like a lane divider.” This was a plus and part of what motivated people to buy them–they were, quite simply, designs that excelled at saying nothing at all.
They were all very solid cars, but any honest long-time Volvo owner or mechanic will admit that beyond about 120k miles you will find that you are buying it over and over again.
Best deal? Buy a 3-year old Volvo and drive it to about 110k miles.
everything’s obvious in hindsight….so to be a monday morn. quarterback…..volvo should have:
1. added an SUV/crossover a few years earlier
2. been positioned as the brand that Toyota Prius drivers would want to move up to, with luxury hybrids and whatnot
3. marketed the c30 more aggressively as a Mini Cooper alternative….and allow individual customization of the c30s a la the Minis
4. not let the s60 wither on the vine for so long.
The C30 doesn’t have the style of the MINI, and the rear-end is fantastically ugly. Also, most people figured out that it was a more expensive, hatchback S40.
What they need to build is a Volvo hybrid; this would have huge appeal to their core demographic. We already know that Ford has the capability to build a great hybrid (Fusion), so why not badge engineer an upscale Volvo version? Hell, if it was available as a wagon and got 45mpg, I’d buy it.
What they need to build is a Volvo hybrid; this would have huge appeal to their core demographic.
I’ve been saying the same of Saab since 2001, and you’re right that it applies equally to Volvo. Both have (had?) the most progressive, left-leaning demographics of any premium brand. In theory, buyers would have been stacked eight feet deep—hell, I know several Saab (and ex-Saab) owners who’ve bought Priuses.
Ford, to it’s credit, at least developed hybrids people might want to buy, just not under the Volvo nameplate. GM Marketing is on crack if they think that a) full-size truck buyers give a shit about mileage or emissions or b) hybrid buyers would be caught dead in a GMT900.
What a ridiculous looking grocery getter.
I absolutely love it.
Airhen : Saab: Why is it that older socialists always drive a Saab? Must be their dream of America being a socialist utopia like Europe?
Volvo: We’ve got the money and therefore we’re going to buy an overpriced station wagon (even if it is slightly ugly) to show off to our neighbors that our precious children are safer then yours!
Unfortunately, I am a young socialist who drives a Volvo wagon but I don’t have any kids. I suppose then that my sperm is safer?
Just a thought but couldn’t GM spin off Hummer and Saab into a seperate company then after a few months declare bankruptcy? Wouldn’t that bypass the franchise laws?
Just bought a 2006 9-3. What a deal!!! I won’t say what I paid, but for the money there was no used car that came close. Only 19K on the odometer and still 1.5 years left bumper-to-bumper. Honestly, it is the best front driver I have ever driven. Very, very, very little turbo lag. Handles great. Surprisingly quick. Very safe (air bags everywhere). Cheap to insure. Sharp styling, IMO. Resale should be strong, since the original owner took the big hit. The only issue of concern is long-term reliability, but I plan to purchase and extended warranty that should cover any problems. VERY happy with the purchase.
For Volvo to stay alive, it needs to get its pricing under control and inline with its natural competitor Subaru.
Case in point: I’m currently leasing a 2006 XC70. Today I looked at a 2009 Subaru Outback as its replacement for when my lease is up in a few months. I love the XC70 and it’s been dead reliable. At 55K, no issues, none, nada. So why on earth am I considering switching brands? One word: Cost.
In Canada for 2009, a Subaru Outback 3.0R Premier lists for 43,595. To create a similarly equipped XC70 3.2, you need to choose the Convenience and Premium packages, then add the following options: Sunroof, Wood Inlays, Navigation System and Premium Sound with Satellite Radio. Total price: 53,310!
Now, what do you get for that additional 10k? Slightly less hp, slightly more torque, slightly more cargo space, a comparable interior (in my opinion), and not much else.